PERFORMANCE FOR A STRANGER

An anonymous performance intervention, 2004

Developed in 2004-5, and reprised in various formats since, Performance For A Stranger is an anonymous one on one performance where participants get selected by a roaming anonymous figure and led into a dark room.

In the original performance participants were offered one match and asked to remove their shoes before entering a pitch black room with the lone figure. Later versions of the work included a chaperone who waited outside the room.

Performance for a Stranger looks at the value of fleeting intamacies between strangers, pushing performance beyond the safe realm of showing it to friends, collegues and those in the know, which is so often the case in live art and contemporary performance scenes.

The performances were only documented through diary writings and gossip that emerged out of people's experiences.

I gatecrashed various festivals and venues with this piece, performing it unofficially and anonymously was a condition for it to work...